I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something that
makes your eyes smile.
I bet there are a hundred objects close by that can do that.
Look at beauty’s gift to us –
her power is so great she enlivens
the earth, the sky, our soul.
Mirabai
There are two ways to get enough.
One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.
G. K. Chesterson
There is more to life than increasing its speed
Mahatma Ghandi
We sometimes mistakingly think that life will unfold magically in a flash, or that we will be born mature and fully developed, just as Athena sprung from the head of Zeus. It would be nice if we saw clearly, immediately, our path and role, but that would take away a lot of the lessons we gain from slowly finding out or from taking wrong turns. Life is, rather, a slow process, a long conversation and dialogue, where we do not often see clearly and are always searching, as this beautiful Mary Oliver poem reminds us:
Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.
Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006
When we notice and celebrate the little things each day, then life becomes a place of wonder, celebration and of gratitude. A walk along the river in the forest, the taste of a dessert, support when someone is ill, encouragement and advice along the road. This poem from Mary Oliver sees blessing in the smallest of creatures, in the shortest of moments. Such an appreciation of life helps us when we are tempted to take the little slights of each day too seriously.
What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that’s all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They’re small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing.
Mary Oliver, Hum
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole Sky.
Hafiz
Mindfulbalance 
